New Years Day

Epidemic EP

This California post-hardcore quintet made a big splash with the horror-infused theme park that was 2013’s Victim To Villain. Returning one year later, they still fit in just fine at your local cemetery, but they’re slowing it down with a goth-metal flair. “Your guilt won’t save you now/From six feet underground,” Ash Costello sings, her voice vaulting over symphonic keys. The anthemic “Defame Me” has rock-radio written all over it, glistening with nü-metal effects. The doomy title track shouts with an authoritarian charge (“We are infected and no one is protected/We’re so! We’re so contagious!”). It’s not all so contagious, though: Compared to Victim, the EP feels a bit lethargic, and the lifeless crunch of “Other Side” chug-chugs right to the skip button. Still, Costello’s bite is fiercer than ever: On “The Joker,” she sings, “I’m no damsel in distress/A weight off my chest/I can breathe without your hands around my neck.”

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“Let Me Down”